Ponzi Winery wanted photos to showcase their gorgeous new tasting room in Sherwood. With a small crew of talent and the right approach to the afternoon’s light, we shot a small set of photographs that show off their beautiful tasting room and give viewers the idea of what to expect if they visit. We worked through three different scenes with our models, in the tasting room, on the bocce court and lastly, sunset on the terrace. Those last few images are our favorites of the project.

Last Fall, we photographed a whole bunch of images for Pacific Rim Wines. Over two days with them we captured their eye-popping Wallula vineyards overlooking the Columbia Gorge and documented their growing practices and winery operation. Recently Pacific Rim launched their updated “Reisling Rules” website that uses those photos. It’s a stunning site with edge-to-edge backgrounds and snappy visuals. It’s immersive and informative and it feels great to see my images used to such advantage. Huge shout-out goes to Amy Hall at Thrive Creative for the gorgeous site design and art direction during the shoot.

Provenance Vineyards in St Helena, CA needed a complete set of marketing and advertising images for several upcoming projects. With the help of their agency, Nagy Design, they sent us a photo list that included bottle shots, interiors and exteriors of the winery, and lifestyle images of the guest experience.

Employees past and present, along with their friends were recruited as informal models. Extra planning went into making sure that the models had appropriate clothing in a range of colors. On set, we had the ability to change wardrobe for all of the models multiple times. The assignment given to the models: “Drink some wine and have a great time.”

We shot the project over 1-1/2 days in early Spring. The beautiful light of early morning and late afternoon were allocated to the outdoor shots. During the harsh light in the middle of the day we moved inside for photos of the tasting room. Bottle shots, some basic and others propped with food, were scheduled for the very beginning of the shoot prior to having the models on set.

At the conclusion of the project, Provenance Vineyards has a complete library of unique, branded lifestyle images, with plenty of variety, that they will use in marketing materials, traditional advertising and social media. Get in touch if you’d like to know more about how we can help you share the story of your wine brand.

But if you’ve ever tried to photograph your own wine bottles, I’ll bet you soon learned just how difficult it is. First, there’s those crazy reflections. Every window, wall and even you with your camera reflects in the glass. And next you likely found out that to make the wine look right, the label is too bright. Or you get the label right and the whole bottle just looks blah. How about those lovely textures or foils you spent extra for? You certainly want to see all those beautiful label design features.

And then you need a clipping path. “What’s a clipping path?” you ask. That’s the feature that allows you to drop out the background and “float” your bottle shot on your brochure or your e-commerce website. Knocked out bottle shots look polished and consistent from release to release, season after season.

And beyond all that, your bottles should look beautifully natural. Your wine doesn’t taste artificial, so your bottle shots shouldn’t look that way. The highlights and reflections should be well-considered and natural looking–not plastic or cartoonish.

That’s what we think goes into a great bottle shot. Get in touch if you want to see how good your wine can look.

I really enjoyed spending the afternoon with Ken Wright at his winery in Carlton. He’s such a modest and low-profile person. You’d never know unless you asked how many wonderful ideas and plans he has for making Carlton better.

I’m thrilled that the Wine Spectator chose my photo for the cover, here’s a few others from the day that I really like as well.

So great to see one of Oregon’s great winemakers featured in Wine Spectator. Ken’s an amazing individual and his wines reflect his passion for creating Pinots that speak to the uniqueness of each specific vineyard, yielding subtle, beautiful wines.

Angela Estate wanted some new photos that convey how well their wines match beautiful food. Bottles were opened, friends and family were enlisted and the mission was accomplished. You can taste these wines at their Dundee tasting room.

Last Spring the art director at Wine Spectator called me to shoot Charles Smith of Charles Smith Wines, K Vintners and other brands. She reached out to me for their feature because she was confident I could handle Charles’ larger-than-life personality and still come home with the goods. He’s an ex-concert promoter with a bit of a wild side. Over two days in Walla Walla, we shot Charles and his team in four locations, including his home cellar and brand new tasting room. The tasting room is a gorgeously renovated historic building with spectacular light and really cool steel walls. Shooting Charles was a bit of a challenge. I understood that he wasn’t going to let me push him too hard, but rather, I needed to be intuitive about how to let him “lead” but still get the kinds of images that I wanted to make. My favorite of these is the portrait with the steel background. It’s graphic and arresting–like the man himself. Total dream assignment.

This is probably the most spectacular vineyard I’ve photographed so far. We had the opportunity to meet the terrific people at Pacific Rim to shoot their Wallula vineyards and winery in Eastern Washington. From dawn until sunset, we documented their bio-dynamic vineyards, winemakers, vineyard workers and the finally the winery in Wenatchee Washington. Pacific Rim is one of the largest Riesling producers in the West.

In March, Bergstrom Winery hosted a special dinner to celebrate the release of their Sigrid Chardonnay. The meal, prepared by The Painted Lady’s Chef Alan Routt, paired courses with Shea and Bergstrom Pinot Noirs and Bergstrom Sigrid Chardonnays.